


If I could start again, A million miles away, I will keep myself, I would find a way

by JustWaitAndSee



Series: My Empire of Dirt [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blackwatch Jesse McCree, Jesse McCree & Genji Shimada Are Best Friends, Jesse goes back in time and just rolls with it, M/M, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Young Jesse McCree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 23:57:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15807165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustWaitAndSee/pseuds/JustWaitAndSee
Summary: Jesse has always ended up in weird situations.So, he does what he does best.He keeps moving and tries to help along the way.





	If I could start again, A million miles away, I will keep myself, I would find a way

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, y'all! I've never actually played Overwatch and this is the first time I've written something this big... First time, I've written anything in awhile, so please be nice!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Jesse wakes up in a place he’s been so many times that he is already pulling his medical file from the sheath at the foot of the bed before he fully comprehends that this place doesn’t actually exist anymore. 

He jostles his body with the movement and his left hand moves to tamp down on dull ache that radiates from his middle. He then realizes two things: His rib is cracked and he still has a left hand. 

“What the fuck?” He hisses out in a tiny breath. 

He opens the datapad and finds the date printed across the top. 

“God damn.” His fingers click through the notes, “God damn it, Lena.” And how the hell did his life get to the point where he knew exactly how this kind of bullshit could happen? 

Preferred Treatment: One week off active duty  
Authorization: Gabriel Reyes  
Approval: Confirmed

As soon as Jesse gets his feet under him, he pulls the backing off the healthcare dash and tugs a detachable cord out that Angela had shown him so he would stop ruining medical equipment when he was trying to sneak out. The screen blacks out and he slowly removes the IV and the probes on his chest. 

An hour later, Jesse has a duffle bag slung across his shoulders. He walks into the empty office which is a blessing because even at two in the morning the owner usually never leaves. 

He grabs a pen and stickie note and writes: _Be back soon, Jefe._

* * *

After hours in the cargo hold of a plane, his ribs are protesting. The drugs wore off around hour six of the freezing ride and he’d really love to slip into a deeper sleep to stave off feeling some of the healing process, but his body was just too used to having to be mission ready after a long flight.

So, he throws his bag down on the queen mattress closest to the window, pulls the blackout curtains shut, and leaves the hotel room with the key shoved into his back pocket. 

Hanamura is a quaint port town. Kind of. 

The town has a very robust economy for such a small area. With a blooming nightlife, an easy ride from most of Japan’s major cities, and a nice taste of ocean air, Hanamura was a beautiful place to visit and an expensive place to live. 

And considering how the Shimada-gumi own every inch of the town, Jesse isn’t really surprised that this place hides all the drugs, weapons, and political bribes almost perfectly. Though the eye-sore of a port proclaiming Shimada Shipping really ruins the entire aesthetic. 

Admittedly, he’d never actually seen it fully when he and his Hanzo had come through the city for one thing or another. 

Hanzo had burned the majority off it on his first flight out of town and supposedly always tried to incinerate whatever was rebuilt when he was leaving his yearly memorial for his brother. 

Genji laughed so hard when he heard about it the first time that he had to rip off his face mask because he couldn’t breathe. 

He remembers his Hanzo giving a small smile as he watched his brother struggle to regain composure, “It was a major part of logistics for the clan.”

Genji cut in, “It was ugly and deserved to be ruined.” A small giggle followed the sentence ruining the dramatic effect Genji was probably aiming for. 

Hanzo just agreed, but that night, as the two of them sat on the roof of Gibraltar, he said, “It was a suffocating sight. You could see it anywhere in the city. Of everything I did that day, burning that place was the most freeing.” 

Between Hanzo and Genji’s father being alive and that he still answers to Gabe, practically, he knew he couldn’t/shouldn’t/wouldn’t burn the stupid place to the ground, but damn did he want to. 

Instead he walks around the streets, he wastes a few hours wandering and ends up using the physical cash he has to buy trinkets. Two bird with one stone. He looks like a tourist and he gets souvenirs that he can slip into weird parts of Gabe’s desk. 

When he vaguely estimates that the high school should be getting out, he heads towards that direction. Jesse tries to keep the lost-but-not-lost tourist expression on his face as the stores start to break up and he is heading quite obviously in the wrong direction. 

No one decides to be a good citizen and try to point him back towards the city proper. Which is probably more about the high level of yakuza activity in the area than anything uncharitable about the people. 

He is dressed as stereotypically American as can be- like usual. He hopes the vaguely confused look combined with the fact that he is still dancing the edge of puberty, that has left him more string bean than anything else, will give him some credit.

Especially because Hanzo Shimada just brushed past him. 

He turns his head slightly and yeah, that is definitely Hanzo’s ass in a uniform. In a high school uniform. Goddamn, he feels weird about that. 

Jesse continues forward and keeps an eye out for his intended target. 

A head full of neon green hair is easy to spot in the crowd full of teenagers strolling out the school doors. 

It isn’t hard to lure Genji away from his group of friends. He tips his hat back, puts some worry in his eyes, and licks his lips. 

Genji had told him that he was a sucker for a pretty face and anything that made him look cool in front of his friends when he was a teenager. 

So, when a girl in the group whines, _“Genij, we’re supposed to go the arcade.”_

And he tosses over his shoulder, _“I’ll catch up,”_ before he winks and adds, _“maybe.”_

Jesse knows he has him hook, line, and sinker. 

They chat as they cross town and when they get to the front of the hotel, Jesse goes, “Come find me if you wanna do something fun, I’ll be in town for a few more days.” 

He has Genji pull a pen from his backpack and across the younger’s hand, he writes, “Do you believe in time travel?” 

By the time Genji has stopped looking at his hand in confusion, the elevator doors are closing. 

Genji will come find him when his curiosity overrides his self-preservation instincts. 

So, a few hours at most.

* * *

Jesse is really getting into the drama he’s watching when the curtains ruffle. 

Genji slips into the room. A black bandana covers the lower half of his face and his hood shielding his neon hair. 

In easy Japanese, though his accent continues to make him sound ridiculous, he says, _“What’s up, Genji?”_

_“You- You said you barely speak Japanese!”_

He switches back to English, “Never said nothing like that.”

“Never said- nothing?” Genji ponders the words over trying to figure out the right meaning. “Speak English the right way at least!”

Jesse laughs remembering when Genji would yell about his “incorrect English” back in Blackwatch. 

“Stop- don’t laugh at me! I want to know what this means!” He jumps on to the bed and shoves his hand into Jesse’s face. 

The letters had been scrubbed down to a messy gray blur, probably so Genji didn’t get in trouble with his father at dinner. 

He shoves the other boy back so he falls into a sitting position on the bed. 

“It meant what it meant.” 

“So, what? You think I’ll believe you can time travel? Or is this what passes for flirting in America?”

“In five years, you become my best friend.” 

“Yeah, I’m leaving.” Genji makes a move to stand up, but Jesse pulls him back down. 

“C’mon, I came to you because I knew you’d listen. Just think, what if I am tellin’ the truth?” 

The younger scrunches up his nose and blows out an exaggerated sigh, “Fine, tell me something to prove it.” 

Genji crosses his legs to settle onto the bed. 

Jesse gives him a smile and says, “You’re obsessed with 2000s K-pop.” 

Which is a fun fact he found out after he had walked into the gym in the middle of the night to find the recently healed cyborg blasting the songs. 

He had used it as blackmail for years before cashing in when Genji had started to make fun of his relationship with Hanzo. 

He told Hana. God, it was definitely worth giving up the best thing he had on Genji to see the gamer freak out and question the ninja about his favorite groups in front of everyone at dinner. It was fun ruining any kind of cool image Genji had built with the newbies. 

“I- Okay, time-traveling best friend, what are you doing here?” 

“I’m here because I know I can change something for good. In around four years, your father dies and a few months later the elders of your clan force Hanzo to kill you.”

Genji flinches back like he’s been smacked. 

Jesse just continues, “An Overwatch doctor saves your life. That’s how we meet.”

The boy scrambles back, “You- You’re Overwatch! You’re trying to trick me!” He rolls off the bed into a defensive stance. A knife has made its way into his hand. 

“Genji, if I was going to trick you, I think the time-travel thing would be literally the stupidest way to do it.”

“Stop- stop trying to make this make sense!”

“If it makes you feel better, Hanzo literally kills them all a little bit after that and spends years feeling super guilty and taking apart anything to do with the Shimada. You forgive him after you find inner peace because of an omnic monk and guilt him into coming to work for Overwatch.” 

Genji just blinks at him silently for a few moments, “This is the stupidest story I have ever heard.” _And it sounds like my brother_ is implied. 

He slips the knife back into his hoodie. As he sits back down, he pulls the bandana down and his hood off. “What do you want from me, time-traveling best friend?”

“I wanted to give you an out. When it gets really bad, just give me the signal and I’ll make you disappear.”

“Just that easy?”

“Just like that.”

“You don’t want information or anything?”

“Gabe might ask, but he’s a softy and you haven’t done nothing you haven’t been forced to do.” He sees Genji push his hand across where the younger had hidden the blade. 

“Overwatch, huh? That sounds pretty cool. Tell me about it.” Genji crawls over to sit next to Jesse with his back against the headboard.

* * *

Two days later, the pair are sitting at a café with the remnants of two huge desserts in front of them. 

Jesse could almost cry at Genji’s expression of wonder at the treat. He had told the younger he would pay for it when he had said he’d never been allowed to eat anything the store sold. 

He hopes future Genji had gotten to eat something like this before eating became a necessity rather than enjoyable. 

“What time is your flight tomorrow?” 

“Early, I’m gonna buy a ticket in the morning, so when the boss gets pinged for me using my accounts I’ll already be on the way back.” 

A vulnerable look passes over Genji’s face, “You’ll call and text, right?” 

Understanding hits Jesse. He’d been surprised about how easily Genji had blown off his school friends for the past few days. The high schooler would meet Jesse at his hotel and they would explore for a few hours before Genji would go home, eat dinner, and then hop the walls to come back and blow off any clan training and homework he was supposed to be doing. 

He grabs Genji’s hand and squeezes. Life sucks without having people who had your back. For Jesse, it’s stepping into an old, unbreakable friendship, but for Genji, this friendship is a new comfort. 

“You’re always gonna have me, Green Ranger.” 

The hold lasts a few moments before Genji pulls away so he can scrap his spoon around to get the last bite of his parfait. He tries to go for a bite of Jesse’s half eaten dessert, but he stops the wandering spoon with his own.

Genji was already in for a stomachache. He didn’t need to be eating Jesse’s food too.

He pouts at his friend and gets up to leave, “Text me when you can finally turn that junk phone of yours on.”

Jesse gives a snort, “Don’t be fucking rude. Give me a hug, jackass.” 

“Yeah, whatever,” but goes in for the hug as soon as Jesse stands up to receive it. 

With Genji gone, Jesse sits and pulls out his wallet so he can pay for both of their dessert with the last bit of his yen. As he is taking the bills out, he hears more than sees someone take the seat Genji just emptied. 

His hand goes straight to the knife in his boot, but he freezes when he fully catches sight of who just sat down across from him. 

Gabe just pulls Jesse’s parfait towards him and starts taking bites. So, there he is, wide-eyed, mouth open like a fish, bent weird, and Gabriel Reyes just stares at him while eating his food. 

Jesse straightens out and stops himself from looking around to check if there were any other Blackwatch agents. 

He had realized on day two of this vacation that he was probably still classified as a flight risk at this age. The fact that he had skipped the country after fucking up his first mission probably didn’t look great either. 

Gabe scraps the spoon obnoxiously across the side of the glass, which Jesse knows is an intimidation tactic. Also, that the man is not going to say anything until he does. 

“Hey, Jefe.” 

Gabe takes another bite. Jesse knows that the older man is using his possessiveness towards food to get the upper hand. And he wished it didn’t still work so many years after Deadlock. Even though Jesse knows he doesn’t want more, the sight of Gabe eating his food is grating.

But he’s not that hungry kid anymore and he knows Gabe will give it back if he asks. 

“Jefe?” Gabe lifts an eyebrow, “Jefe, I’m sorry.”

“Kid, we are so past sorry.” Jesse can feel his shoulders rising. 

“I-“

The hand holding the spoon slams down on the table halting Jesse’s words. 

“No, you fuck up a mission, you face the consequences. You want to be alone for a few days you put in leave time. You do _not_ skip the fucking country and leave a _fucking_ post-it note.”

“Je-“

“ _Japan_ , Jesse, are you out of your fucking mind?” 

“Sorry,” comes out in a tone Jesse can’t remember his voice actually ever taking. 

“Pay the bill. I’m not having this discussion with you in public.” 

Jesse throws down the all the yen bills he has in his wallet and follows Gabe out of the restaurant. 

It doesn’t surprise him when Gabe leads them to the hotel Jesse has been staying at. The younger is a step behind Gabe and he keeps his head low as the tension in his shoulders gets worse with the silence. 

He’s going to have to play this well because there is a high chance Gabe has already decided to throw him into prison. 

The fact that he hasn’t seen any other Blackwatch operatives is a good sign, but Gabe has always been a deal with your own problems kind of guy. 

And Jesse has always been specifically Gabe’s problem. 

Of course, Gabe flips out a key card to Jesse’s room before he even has a chance to make a move for his own. When they walk in, Jesse can see Gabe’s duffle is laying on the queen mattress closest to the door. 

The commander grabs the desk chair, spins it around, and sits with his arms crossed. Jesse sits down on the edge of his bed across from him. 

“Well?” 

“I mean it sounded like a good idea in my head and I didn’t realize till I was already in Japan that it might not have been. 

“Wha-“

“I promise I was coming back! I was getting on the earliest flight tomorrow!” 

Gabe pinches the bridge of his nose and tips the whole chair back as he stares at the ceiling for a moment. Jesse can see Jack doing the same thing in his mind’s eye when someone said something particularly stupid and wonders which one of them the mannerism actually belonged to first. 

He lets out a noisy sigh as the front legs of the chair and his feet snap down against the floorboards. 

“You’re back on remedial training for six months and if anyone asks where you were you say with me. Goddamn it, if this shit ever happens again I will give you to Jack for desertion charges. You got me?” 

“Yes,” Jesse responds quickly. 

“Excuse _me_?”

“Yes, Jefe!” 

“Guess that’s the best I can expect out of you.” He gets up and walks over to his duffle. “Get some sleep, kid.”

The thing is Jesse remembers the six months of remedial training. Gabe had yelled at him for getting shot his first mission and assigned him the back training as a punishment. For the six months following the training, Gabe had only let Jesse go on missions that the man was also assigned to. 

Gabe wasn’t giving him any extra punishment for running away. 

Jesse thinks about the first time Hana had gotten hurt on a mission. The fear that turned into anger at the enemy and later at her. He had to apologize later and wrung a promise from her to start doing extra target practice with him for a while. 

He wonders what Gabe sees when he looks at him right now. 

When he thinks back to how he was at this age, the man probably sees a kid who’s first instinct is to choose a direction and run when shit goes to shit. 

Jesse remembers waking up in that bed a lifetime ago in pain, scared out of his mind of the consequences, with no place to run to. 

Older Jesse was just more knowledgeable than the kid he used to be. 

Older Jesse never ran out of places to run. 

He watches as the man checks the integrity of the main door latch before making his way into the bathroom. 

Pulling his hat down over his eyes, even though there was no one there to see, he lets a few tears slip down his face. 

He missed Gabe. 

He had missed him a lot. 

A few days later, Gabe asks Jesse how he got to Japan. 

A few weeks later, Jesse asks Gabe how he found him.

* * *

Jesse can’t say that he minded the last six months of remedial training. 

The time has given him the chance to remember names, old missions, and what it’s like to always follow half a step behind his commander. 

The months were a grueling training schedule that relaxed him with its familiarity. It was nice to only have to eat, train, and sometimes track down people on base for Gabe. 

The training was the final push he needed for the bulk of his muscle mass to return and, with the time passing, his body topped off his height with what he knew as his last few inches. The biggest bonus was the look on Gabe’s face when Jack had said he couldn’t really call him “bean sprout” anymore.

His biggest worry now, besides Overwatch falling to pieces, is Genji. 

The elders have been putting more pressure on Genji since Hanzo left for college a few months ago. The younger keeps waving it off by reminding him that Hanzo comes home every weekend and, even living in Tokyo, is still the perfect heir. 

And that would be a fine deflection, if he wasn’t getting drunken texts and calls at all manner of the day. 

So, a call on his way out of his last punishment session is just normal at this point. 

He picks up his phone and makes his way towards Gabe who is waiting in the hallway for him to grab his bag. 

“ ‘Ello?”

“Jess?” The nickname is said in a long slur. 

“Heya, Gen, what’s up?”

A sob breaks across the connection, “Everything hurts, Jess.” 

He’s running before he fully comprehends the words. Gabe calls out his name as he passes before following behind him. “Gen, where are you?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,”

“Okay, okay, I’m going to get you some help,”

“No, you can’t take me yet! I want to- I can’t- I want to live my own life!”

“I’m not taking you anywhere, Green Ranger. That’s a backup plan, remember?”

“I don’t want to be a cyborg, Jess. It’s too soon! You said I had years!”

“You do, nothing is wrong with your body, Genji.” He tries to placate. 

“I can’t feel anything.” His sobs are worsening and his voice is coming out in moans, “Why are they taking my body? Why is he taking it from me? He can’t! They’re taking everything!”

He slams into a monitoring room. As soon as he gets close enough to the key board, he begins to type in his personal codes with his phone held between his ear and shoulder. 

“Okay, okay, breath with me. I’m putting you on speaker right now. I need you to stay on the line so I can trace your call, all right?” 

A mixture of sobs and rough inhalations of air are the only response he gets. The added encryptions on Genji’s phone keep pinging his location to Europe. 

Gabe pushes him out of the way, “What country?”

“Japan,” Jesse says quickly. 

Gabe sends him a sharp look before the man starts narrowing the search algorithm leaving Jesse to refocus on Genji. “Gen, I want you to breath with me. I’m going to count it out and you’re going to follow.” 

Genji responds by letting out a wet sounding grunt. 

He keeps his voice calm while trying to keep track of Gabe’s process. The search area at least has been narrowed to the prefecture that Hanamura is located in. 

Once Genji’s breathing seems to calm down, Jesse asks, “What did you take, Genji?”

“I don’t-“ 

“Breathe, Genji, what did you take?”

“I don’t know. It was purple.”

Jesse rolls his chair over to a separate monitor and pulls up the internal medical database. “Was it a pill, powder, or liquid?” 

“It was-,” The pause is long enough that Jesse opens his mouth to ask again, “It was a pill.”

He types in the description and effects into the search. He pauses a second before adding “Shimada” into the bar. A single result pops up. 

He hears Gabe’s voice giving out an address in Japanese, so he waves over the elder’s attention to add his own information. 

_“Yes, it seems like a bad trip. I think it’s that Purple Dragon shit the Shimada have been selling.”_ There’s a pause as the dispatch answers. _“How long?”_

Another pause, this one results in Gabe’s face tightening into something angry. _“Excuse me?!”_

Jesse makes a gimme hand gesture. Gabe gives him a confused look before switching phones with him. The elder slips straight into egging Genji into continuing to speak, while keeping an eye on the cowboy. 

_“Is this the Hanamura dispatch?”_

_“Yes, we told your friend you need to bring him in. We can’t send an ambulance for every person who has a bad high on that stuff. If you can’t make it to the hospital, it will be out of his system within a few hours.”_

_“It’s Shimada Genji.”_

There’s a pause before he hears frantic movement, _“An ambulance will be there in the next five minutes.”_

 _“Thank you.”_

The next few minutes are tense as Genji oscillates between moaning about how everything hurts and how he can’t feel different parts of his body. 

Jesse feels the guilt settle deep into his stomach. Genji wouldn’t be having these types of fears if he hadn’t told him how bad his injuries were in the future. 

Once the dispatcher confirms the EMTs have Genji, he and Gabe hang up the phones. 

Jesse just tips his head back against the back of his chair and lets out a few long deep breathes. 

“So, Shimada Genji.” It’s a loaded kind of question that’s not really a question at all. 

“That vacation six months ago.”

“Yeah, I assumed.”

“He just- He doesn’t want anything to do with that yakuza bullshit and I’m trying to help him out.” He finally pulls his head up and goes to lean forward till his arms are resting on his legs and he’s staring at Gabe right in the eye. “He needs me, Jefe, like I needed you.” 

“Fucking hell, anything else about this vacation that’s going to come bite me in the ass?” 

“Don’t think so. I was only gone for four days.”

“And yet…” Gabe pinches the bridge of his nose. “When the kid needs to be pulled, tell me. Do not try to pull this shit off yourself and for god’s sake get whatever information about the Shimada you can out of him, ya’ got me?”

“ ‘Course, Jefe.”

* * *

It’s somewhere between too goddamn early and if I don’t get out of bed I’m gonna be late, so Jesse is sitting in a mostly empty cafeteria picking at his breakfast. He got in from a mission two nights ago and his jetlag is still fucking with his sleep schedule. 

He looks over at the line beginning to grow by the food and debates whether getting another cup of coffee was worth the wait. His mental deliberation halts when he catches sight of Jack walking away from the line with a tray of food. 

He hasn’t been avoiding Jack per say. Being literally stuck in the basement training all day usually limits any possibility of running into the commander. 

The only times he has seen Morrison since being chucked into the past have been when Gabe has pulled him upstairs for a debrief and he was just fine with that. Even after old tensions had settled on the Post-Recall team, Jack Morrison just seemed to know exactly what to say to bug the shit out of Jesse. 

And he’s coming this way. Because of course he is.

Jack puts his tray down on the table and Jesse stands to salute him, “Strike Commander.” 

Jack just stifles a yawn and says, “I know you’re fucking with me, but it’s too early for this.” 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

“McCree,” He says with a little exasperation. 

Jesse stifles a laugh and sits. 

As Jack sits down as well, McCree notices the sweatshirt he’s wearing says West Point, which would be good and all if he didn’t know for a fact Morrison went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis. He wonders how much trouble he’d get in for asking if he was in the general mess hall to return Gabe’s sweatshirt. 

“Early morning, Strike Commander?” 

“No, just a late night.” 

They both take a few more bites of their food. 

“McCree?”

“Yessir?”

“I know you finished your GED here, but are you going to take advantage of our college program?” 

He knew it was too good to be true to have a nice quiet breakfast with Morrison. “I’m not too good at book smart stuff, sir. I only did the GED ‘cause Boss said I had to.” 

“I don’t believe that.”

Trying to keep anger from lacing into his words, he says, “Nothing to believe, sir.”

“McCree, Reyes thinks you have a bright future ahead of you.” In his head, he can see his younger self getting up and walking away, but older Jesse needs Jack to like him and Jack likes to be listened to.

“Well, I hope so, sir. Can’t exactly go anywhere else.”

Jack sighs and puts his hand on the table like he’s about to reach out to grab Jesse’s. Jesse just moves the hand not holding his bagel under the table. 

“I know sometimes it’s hard to think so far in the future, but a command position is not really that long off. Once your deal is over in a few years, the only thing stopping you from increasing security clearances is your education. You need-“

“Wait, wait, what? Sir, you lost me.”

Jack tilts his head like a puppy, “Where?”

“Uh- Let’s start with what you mean by deal?”

He looks confused, but explains, “McCree, you signed a document for service time in exchange for jail time. Since you were a minor, Gabe got it written for four years instead of some ridiculous amount. Your security clearance can’t be up-ed until that service time is over.” 

Which makes sense, that is what happened last time, but he had just thought Gabe was trusting him with more. 

God, he was a really stupid kid, just signing shit. 

“And the college stuff?” He asks. 

“I can’t promote you above basic agent status without a degree from a higher education program, even if I wanted to it’s the UN Council’s policy.” 

McCree had always thought that Blackwatch didn’t have a chain of command like Overwatch did. It was just seniority, aka he listened to what Gerard and Gabe told him to do and after a few years of turn over everyone else listened to what he said. 

He thinks about how Gabe used to leave the college pamphlets everywhere. 

He thinks about all the work Gabe had to do after Gerard died. 

He remembers Gabe shrugging him off when he asked to take over some of the easy stuff Gerard used to do like supply orders or low-level mission debriefs. 

He thinks about how Gabe never came to him when he needed help with anything, but mission leading. 

“Look, even if you don’t want to stay after your service is done a degree will help you-“

“Where do I sign up?”

“What?”

“Where do I sign up?”

Jack’s reaction is odd. He looks like he might start crying. “I’ll email over the forms!” 

God, he had to have been such a dick as kid. Jack is literally trying to get him ready for a promotion because Gabe wouldn’t explain anything and he had just walked away. 

Maybe Jack Morrison wasn’t so bad. 

“Hey, Strike Commander, thank you. Boss didn’t tell me he needed me to do this stuff, so I just… didn’t. I really appreciate you taking the time to come break it down for me.” 

“Oh,” Morrison looks shocked for a second before a bright smile breaks across his face, “No problem, McCree.”

* * *

Jesse was going to be productive today if it killed him. 

With a notebook and his issued laptop, he walks over to the medical wing. 

Before he even steps foot into the office emblazoned with _Dr. Ziegler, Chief Resident_ , he’s yelling out, “Hey, Ang, can I set up in here for the day? I’m not getting any work done in my room.” 

Angela doesn’t look up from the datapad she’s occupied with and answers, “Sure, I guess. What are you working on, Jesse?”

He opens his laptop and pulls open the web camera. “Those college classes they got me doing.” He moves the camera back and forth before getting the angle that he wants. “I’m a few weeks behind ‘cause I’ve been putting it off.”

He takes a few steps back and grabs one of the chairs meant for guests. He sits and tests where his head is appearing in the screen before moving his chair a few inches to the right. 

The doctor lifts her head as she notices the spectacle. “I thought those things were learn at your own pace.”

Jesse finally sits down relaxing back in the seat before replying, “Yeah, but Jack said I gotta schedule time out every day to make it a habit.”

Angela tilts her head. “Jack?” She asks. 

Jesse huffs and grabs at his notebook. “Oh, shut up. I need all the help I can get with this shit.” He swipes a pen from Angela’s holder. 

“Jesse, why are you in my office right now?”

“You said you’d help me with this. I need help being kept on task. This calculus stuff is super boring.” 

“So, you’re just pointing a camera at Dr. O’Deorain’s examination room for no reason.” 

He leans across the desk and whispers, “Ang, would you like plausible deniability or the real answer?” 

She thinks for a second before leaning is as well and whispering, “Knowing you, plausible deniability.” She picks up her datapad and goes back to her work. “Just tell me if you need any help with your math homework.” 

“Glad, we figured that out.” 

Jesse is two hours deep into a ridiculous hell of complex math when he sees movement on the camera on his screen. He scribbles down, _12:35, Donovan Ent._

Fifteen minutes later, he writes, _12:50, Donovan Ex._

Angela comes back in as Jesse writes down _12:55, Avecilla Ent_ and she places a takeaway plate in front of him. She leans close to look at the scribbles in the margins of his notes like she’s checking his work and says, “Neither of them is on her calendar for appointments.”

Jesse hums. 

“Was Lacroix running a clinic today?”

“Nah, she only does those once a month.” But Amelie’s clinics were known as much for weeding out the weak as for breaking bones. 

The fastest way to get fired was for Amelie Lacroix to say you were unfit, so the smart ones went to the medical wing the next day.

He meets her eyes and gives her a small nod as she moves to her side of the desk. 

His phone goes off showing that Genji sent him pictures. 

Unlocking it, a selfie of both Shimada brothers greets him. The words _Look who I got to come out with me!_ banner across the bottom. They are both tinted purple with club lights, it clashes oddly with Genji’s hair, and Hanzo is doing his best to maintain a neutral expression. 

The second is Hanzo resting back in the booth with a drink in his hands, hair long and silky, face clean-shaving, eyes glaring.

The text after it says _Don’t do anything weird with this._

Jesse watches as Avecilla leaves the exam room behind him before texting back, _This is why I don’t tell you things._

He forwards the second picture to Gabe and adds, _Updated photo for Shimada Hanzo._

_I’ll put it with the other 23._

A moment passes before Gabe sends another text, _I gave you editor’s clearance for the Shimada file. Do not use it to save pictures of your crush._

He smiles. A productive day indeed. 

He gets five more names in the next two hours, but no more after that. 

Over the next week, Jesse spends as much time doing class work in Angela’s office as he can. Finding an hour here or there between workouts, drills, and the one, short mission he was given. 

He’s walking towards Gabe’s office with a handwritten list of names, a box full of paper personnel and mission files, and enough evidence to back his suspicions (and time-travel knowledge) that he’s not afraid of being laughed out. 

Just to make sure though, Jesse checks his watch to confirm the time and day of the week before knocking on the door twice. All the rooms are soundproof, so he counts to five and walks in. 

Jack Morrison is standing next to a seated Gabe and Jesse tries to feign surprise at seeing the Strike Commander while both give him blank looks. Jesse figured out they like to meet up down here every week before they left base for dinner a few months ago. 

They know he knows and he knows they know that he knows, but it is still fun to play dumb. 

His mental age is bordering on forty and he’s a bit miffed that he’s going to have to go through convincing Hanzo to date him again if the other doesn’t end up going down with the rest of the Shimada when they reach that point…. He’s got to get his kicks somewhere.

“I can,” He pauses to shake his head in silent communication, “come back later.” 

Gabe narrows his eyes and motions him in. Jesse puts down the box and takes out a scanner from his pocket. 

Jack just looks back and forth between the two of them before rolling his eyes and sitting in one of the guest chairs. 

Jesse pulls a bug off the top of shelves and throws it at Gabe. The commander studies it probably trying to determine any origin from the make. Jack scoots his chair closer to get a look, annoyance gone. 

Jesse pulls two more out before Gabe just gestures for him to sit in the chair next to Jack. 

The Blackwatch commander hits the top button on a device he pulls from his desk. 

All the lights go out and ten seconds after, the backup generator lights flicker on. 

“Please, tell me that is not why we get blackout every few weeks.”

The Blackwatch duo just stare at Jack until he sighs and tilts his head back in defeat, “You know what, just tells us what’s happening, Agent McCree.”

“I think Dr. O’Deorain is our leak.” 

“McCree, I know you don’t like her, but come on.”

“One: I would never come to you without solid evidence. Two: it ain’t science unless someone else can replicate the results. Three: She’s creepy as hell and I stand by that as a matter of fact.” 

Jesse can hear Gabe’s remark in his head from when he had last spoken against Moira twenty years, _And where’d you learn what science is?_

It felt like the first real line in the ground in his last life. Gabe trusting a doctor he just hired over Jesse who had and would have done anything to help him for years. 

Jack cuts in though before Gabe says something rude, which is why he had chosen this exact time to bring everything, “What leak?”

He is staring straight at Gabe who has his lips pursed and he asks again firmer, “Gabe, what leak?” 

Gabe sighs, “We’re not sure if it’s a real leak or just some bad informants yet. Which is why I didn’t tell you.” The commander glares towards Jesse. 

“Okay,” Jack now looks at Jesse, “You said you had solid evidence.”

“Yeah, so I set up in Angela- I mean Dr. Ziegler’s office and noted down anyone going into Dr. O’Deorain’s exam room. The people who kept coming in never had appointments or training that could cause injury before. They just walked straight in there for exactly fifteen minutes, five minutes would pass, and then someone else would do the same thing.” 

Gabe leans back in his chair and Jack takes the list of names from the desk. 

“I cross-checked all the names and they were always people who had been in briefing either that day or the day before.” 

Standing from his seat, Gabe starts pulling the mission files out of the box, “These are all the missions I’ve assigned for the past week.” 

Gabe looks up to catch Jesse’s eye and Jesse responds, “There are twenty names.”

Gabe swears. He grabs the entire pile of files between his hand slamming them on to the desk. 

Twenty names out of fifty-four Blackwatch agents was a lot. Even worse was the possibility that Jesse probably hadn’t found all of them. 

Jack gets up and pulls his chair next to Gabe’s. He places the list by his hand. 

“Anything else, McCree?”

“I don’t have clearance to look up who recommended them all. We’ve just expanded so much lately I thought that maybe the common person was on the council.” 

Jack rubs his hand across his face, “Of course.” He takes a deep breath. “Could you go get Amari and Director Lacroix for me, McCree? Since our phones won’t be turning on for the next two hours.” 

Gabe looks up from where he is spreading the folders, “Also, I want the paper files for the past six months’ worth of missions.” He throws over his clearance badge. 

“Gotcha, I’ll be back soon.”

“Wait,” Gabe calls, “Get one of those bug scramblers from tech. We’re going to be here a lot longer than two hours.”

“You got it, Jefe.” 

He hears Jack as the door closes, “So much for date night, huh?”

* * *

Jesse sits on the roof, a cigar in his hands and his eyes to the night sky. 

After almost three years of constant anxiety, he just lets his body relax.

Every Blackwatch agent had been fired earlier that morning. 

Gabe and Jack had walked into the cafeteria screaming at one another. 

About lies. 

About missions. 

About people dying. 

An hour later, every single Blackwatch agent had been told to pack their bunks and head to Human Resources for their papers. Most would receive transfers back to their own militaries, those that applied directly just got severance. 

Jesse had walked around with the group. One of the older guard with a mean streak a mile long called out to him that prison wouldn’t be too bad. 

The cowboy saw his chance and took it. The crunch under his fist felt satisfying as did the fact that right after Avecilla pulled him away. 

“If they try to throw you in jail, call,” a business card was slipped into his hand. 

Jesse palmed it into his pocket tipping his hat. 

He made sure he was the last in line, looking like a young man trying to stave off the inevitable, like by some miracle Reyes was going to come down and save him.

He got a few pitiful looks from people who had been there as long as he had and a few firm nods from people he saw slip by Avecilla. 

The process lasted all day, but they were gone… all of them. 

Jesse lets the cigar smoke fill his lungs and breathes it out in a long happy sigh. 

The staircase door opens and he looks up to find Gabe walking towards him. 

The elder sits on the ledge of the roof, so he’s two feet higher than Jesse’s position on the floor laying against it. A bottle of shitty whiskey dangles from his fingers, half drained. 

They just sit in silence for a while. 

“Hey,” Gabe finally says, soft in the night air. 

“What’s up, Jefe?”

“I got to apologize,” Jesse turns his head to stare wide-eyed at the commander, but Reyes keeps his eyes on the skyline. 

“McCree- Kid- Fuck, Mijo-”

He had only called Jesse that teasingly at the beginning of his time in Blackwatch. The title slowly died out by the end of his second year. 

Gabe stops completely before restarting in Spanish, _“Mijo, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to corner me to face facts.”_

_“Jefe-“_

_“Just let me finish, please, Mijo.”_ Gabe pulls back a long drink of the whiskey. _“Jack and I- we aren’t healthy. Those military scientists did who knows what to us and they won’t tell us shit. What it comes down to is our bodies are aging too fast and the stress isn’t helping.”_

Gabe scrubs a hand across his face and pulls his beanie a little farther down his head. 

_“I’ve been trying to track down the other SEP soldiers and nothing. Can’t find a soul other than me and Jack. No one’s willing to try to help us without knowing what happened they did to us. O’Deorain was the only geneticist I could find who said she would help.”_

_“Fuck, Jefe.”_

He starts to laugh in huffing breathes that sound almost like sobs. A weird smile spreads across his face looking more and more like he’s just trying to grind his teeth together to contain it. 

_“I just- God, it was so stupid. I had this fucking dream we’d retire to Jack’s backwater family farm. We’d get into stupid fights about plants and who’s turn it is to do the dishes. Maybe a dog or something. Just normal stupid stuff old men do. Maybe yell at some kids to get off the property. Shit, both of us would have fucking hated it, but it was just quiet. A nice quiet fucking dream.”_

Jesse watches as his commander takes a deep swallow, doesn’t look too hard at the way Gabe’s eye water. 

The silence once again wraps over them. 

There’s nothing Jesse can say to make it better. 

No way to tell him that Moira might be able to save him, but at the cost of his entire being and everything that means something to him now. 

No way to tell him that there would always be someone begging them to fight- to come back- to help. 

Jesse just let’s Gabe have his farm. 

He dreams about the open desert, the purr of a motorcycle, and a steady weight pressed against his back. He’s got no right to destroy wishful fantasies.

* * *

Genji lives with a clock ticking in his ear. 

The countdown of the bomb that haunts his sober moments and morphs into nightmares in the worst of his binges. 

He knows he’s playing too close to this danger. 

He catches himself opening his phone, wondering why he’s waiting for his life to explode before calling. 

He pops another Advil and sends Jesse a meme to see if the cowboy is awake wherever he is in the world. 

Father’s death is drawing near. 

Genji can see it because he’s looking. 

A pill case in his inner pockets. Having Hanzo take over more stressful meetings. Ignoring the results of Genji’s worse indulgences. 

Father pulls Hanzo nearer to his heart and lets Genji slip into his blurry nights and painful mornings. 

Jesse sends him back a picture of the Seoul skyline. 

Without thinking he texts, _Pick me up when you’re done._

His phone starts to ring and his head already hurts as he pulls it towards his ear. 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah,” And as he says the words, he realizes they’re true, “I can’t live like this anymore.” 

“Gen, I-“

“Jesse, please don’t apologize. I just hate it. I hate everything.” His entire body is shaking. “I can’t live like this. I can’t be this angry all the time. This scared.” 

“Okay, Amelie and I will be done tonight. Would that be good?”

“Yes, that will be perfect.” 

He takes a long swig of water and just listens to Jesse breathe. 

“I’ll see you soon, Cowboy.” 

Genji makes a performance of going to lunch in his pajamas. He asks people to keep their voices down, he begs for a Bloody Mary just to hear Hanzo snap at him, he quickly fumbles away from the table to clear his stomach as the food settles in it. 

The nearest bathroom just happens to be in his father’s office, so if a drive ends up downloading his computer’s most recent contents, would anyone really suspect the childish second son.

Genji grabs it on the way out of the bathroom. He hears the grumbling of the elders and he shouts his intent to sleep it off as he stumbles by. 

He throws the most recent drive into a bag of ten others. 

That night he walks out in sweatpants, athletic shoes, and drives full of information stuffed in the pocket of his favorite hoodie. 

No one says anything about his choice in clothing. 

He wiped his phone clean and flushed it in parts down the toilet. 

His wallet left, like it had been an accident, by the bathroom sink. 

It’ll be a few days before anyone really starts looking for him. 

Genji realizes he’s been chasing freedom the wrong way, trying to stave off the pure anger that burns in his heart with a water gun. Every step he takes away from the compound makes his soul lighter. 

Even if Overwatch isn’t perfect, it’s a starting point. 

With a smile on his face, Genji thinks a nice long journey might be exactly what he needs.

* * *

Jesse feels that it’s unfair that Genji gets to hang out with Gerard and Amelie doing cool ninja stuff and he gets to sit through the Morrison/Reyes shitshow. 

Jack is mad at Gabe for keeping Genji a secret and Gabe is mad at Jack for not keeping his fucking nose out of it. 

For the fourth time, Jesse rolls his eyes, gets up, and walks towards the door. 

For the fourth time, Gabe grabs his arm and shoves him back in the chair. 

He is getting his phone out of his pocket so he can text Olivia live commentary when Gabe says, “He’s been Jesse’s asset for five years!” 

Jesse looks up to find both super soldiers staring straight at him. 

Jack rumbles, “McCree?” 

“Yep,” Is all he can think to reply. 

“He’s listed as main contact on every Shimada case file. It’s not like there hasn’t been a trail a mile long that we had a great fucking informant.” Gabe huffs out. 

They are back to completely ignoring Jesse. 

Jack throws out his arms in exasperation. “Yes, but there’s a difference between a good informant and an heir!” 

_I’m going to die of old age in here before they finish_ , he texts. 

_How do they get anything done?_

Jesse knows he shouldn’t be encouraging Sombra to be watching through the cameras, but they are in one of the more public conference rooms and he knows if she’s watching she’ll make sure all the footage is secure. 

_Something else usually comes up, they have to table it, and one of them deals with it by the time the other remembers,_ He pauses for a few moments and wonders if she’s old enough to know that they usually end up fucking on the desk to shut each other up. _They only argue on easy stuff. Big shit they get all quiet and gruff and deal with it together._

A video from Genji pops up on his notifications and he plays it to see Genji and Amelie sparring on top of the rock wall. 

He needs to get the hell out of here. Jack’s next meeting isn’t for another hour and Gabe’s next meeting is literally with Jesse to go over drill schedules.

Once they start the drill schedule meeting, they won’t be done till dinner, which means he can’t go have fun in the training room. 

_Awwww, old guys in love_ , Sombra writes back. 

He gets up again to leave and is pulled back down. 

He just wants to do cool shit with Genji. Is that too much to ask?

This responsibility thing was a trap. Really, he should’ve known better.

* * *

Jesse should have expected this after Genji was filmed a few days ago saving some people in Brazil. 

Both of them have been taking on a more active role in Overwatch. With the odd rise in terrorists with advanced technology, Jack was finding himself shorthanded more days than not. 

Though Jesse had spent the past few days holed up with Sombra trying to track down Moira. The doctor slipped the monitors she shouldn’t have known she had. 

Her disappearance and the emergence of a few too many people with enhancements smells like something that’s going to give Jesse a bunch of trouble. 

Maybe if he wasn’t so caught up in that situation and the continuous battle to keep the Lacroix’s out of Talon’s line of sight, he would have been ready to see Hanzo Shimada in the interrogation room. 

The man is wearing Blackwatch provided clothing and his arms are bound together all the way up to the elbow. 

Jesse is iching to recommend shackling his feet together or something. The fact that he’s standing between Gabe and Genji is the only thing that’s keeping him from adding more precautionary measures. 

Jesse looks at Hanzo and then down at the report in his hand. 

He swears, holds himself back from screaming, and lets out a few more curses because it’s making him feel better. 

He’s glad the room is sound proofed and that there is one-way glass separating him from Hanzo. 

He can’t even say he’s mad. He’s just thinking about all the nights he wasted and wants to eat his hat because he is so frustrated. 

Jesse covers his face with the newly printed file. He bends over and curls into himself. “I worked-“

“I know, kid.” Gabe nearly makes him topple over with a heavy pat on his shoulder. Jesse can’t convince himself that that wasn’t Gabe’s intention in the first place. 

“So hard,” He groans out. 

Gabe hums. 

Jesse feels like this has to be karma for something he did to Gabe because the man is taking this way too well. 

“I was going to get a promotion out of this. Amelie was going to stop making prison jokes,” he whines. 

He straightens himself back up. 

“You were using me for a promotion,” Genji says with his hand to his heart like the overdramatic shit he is. 

“You were using me to deal with your family issues. We’re even,” he grumbles. “Doesn’t matter anyways. Hanzo killed everyone.” 

“Yes, I do feel like this was very anticlimactic.” 

“McCree, are you done whining, yet? There’s still a shit ton of the Shimada-gumi for you to clean up.” 

“Ugh, can’t Genji do it. This seems like it should be his problem.”

“I’m just a young, newly trained agent, Supervisory Agent McCree. I couldn’t possibly head up a team to track down all the members of a centuries-old, multi-continental yakuza group.”

“Fuck you,” He grouses through his teeth as he walks out.

“Have fun, McCree.”

“Fuck you too, Jefe!” 

He walks into the interrogation room and slides right into the chair across from Hanzo. 

His spurs make a nice clinking sound as he puts his feet up on the table, his chair balancing on its back legs. 

He takes out his phone and waits. 

He knows that Hanzo should be able to see the reflection of his phone in the one-way mirror so he pulls open a well-known game app. 

He’s through four levels when Hanzo finally speaks, “Are you done with this game yet?”

Jesse doesn’t move his eyes away from his phone. “No, but I don’t think there’s really an end to it. I’m already way into the five hundreds in levels.” 

The tension sits for a few moments in the air before Jesse finishes the level he’s on. 

He kicks his feet off the table and they give a nice thud when they hit the ground. 

“Got something you’d like to say, Mr. Shimada? You did turn yourself into custody.” 

“You were taking too long and picking off the wrong targets.” 

_Or maybe we were strategically picking off parts, so we wouldn’t have to spend the next year tracking down every single member of your gang_ , Jesse wants to scream. 

Jesse just stares and keeps himself from glaring at Hanzo for ruining his perfect plan. 

His perfect plan that took five private meeting with Jack, eight with Gabe, and had already been three months into action. 

God, he’s going to be up all night calling teams to give out reassignments. 

“Why don’t you fill in some blanks for me?” Hanzo opens his mouth, but Jesse cuts him off, “And then we’ll see about getting your brother flown in to see you.” 

Better for him not to know about Genji being here until Jesse had agents with actual eyes on the corpses.

* * *

“Hey!” Genji calls out once the door closes behind him. He walks close before asking, “Why are you being so mean to him?” 

“Genji, he’s the head of a major yakuza group. I can’t be nice to him.” He reaches to pour two cups of coffee. 

“Excuse me, you were supposedly married to him in your time travel thing.” 

“We weren’t married.” He looks down to where he is already mixing in the spoon of sugar Hanzo likes in his coffee, even though his counterpart had asked for it black. “Just- Whatever, okay, the Hanzo I knew in the future, he would have wanted me to do this. He would have told me to not trust him as far as I could throw him, you got me? For my peace of mind and my Hanzo’s, I need to make sure that what he is saying is true. I won’t let him hurt you.” 

“Aw, Cowboy, that is so touching.” Genji gives a small smile which Jesse can immediately tell is fake before he pushes Jesse’s hat into his face and takes off running. 

The cybernetically enhanced boots Genji is wearing makes him a lot faster than Jesse, so he isn’t even surprised that the door is locked after he knocks into it full speed. 

He rolls his eyes and pulls out his key card to override the lock when Gabe pokes his head out of the viewer side and just beckons him in. 

Jesse watches as Genji walks closer to his brother. He thinks the younger is going to go for a hug, but he seems to think better of it and sits in Jesse’s chair. 

Jack has also taken up residence in the viewing room. 

Jesse wishes he didn’t leave his cup of coffee on the counter when running after Genji. 

“Strike Commander Morrison,” he acknowledges as he walks to stand beside him. 

“Supervisory Agent McCree, give me an update.” 

“Hanzo Shimada, head of the Shimada-gumi, turned himself over about three hours ago. He claims to have killed off the entirety of the Hanamura-based Shimada. I have confirmations of the deaths of sixty-three by agents on the ground and Agent Shimada has identified the corpses that made up the elder council and other high-ranking members. My agents have taken over the scene and are securing the house staff and any other witnesses. 

“Agents I have on the ground at other Shimada outposts are staying vigilant and are to report to myself or Commander Reyes as soon as there is any type of movement. I have already sent agents out to the other main outposts to keep eyes on areas we believe could cause the most damage from any type of escalation.” 

Jack nods, “Good work, McCree. Take Overwatch resources to plug up any shortages you have.”

Jesse struggles to keep a smile from his face. He’s never gotten a compliment from Jack on his work before. 

“Yes, sir. Before you leave, sir, I need to talk to you and Commander Reyes about what we are going to do with Hanzo Shimada.” 

“What do you think we should do, Supervisory Agent McCree?” Gabe asks, his face completely blank.

He looks through the glass at where Genji is laughing as Hanzo yells at him. Even as he sounds angry, Hanzo’s eyes were soft and happy when staring at his younger brother. 

“Genji’s deal had a clause for if Hanzo turned himself over.”

Jack pipes in, “That was before he confessed to murdering sixty-three people and ruined your op.”

“Sixty-three people who were all high-level yakuza,” Gabe retorts. 

“And ruining my operation isn’t actually a jail-able offense. It’s just fucking annoying. I was thinking a work deal, similar to mine. Jail or Blackwatch. A jail cell isn’t going to hold him anyways.” 

“Hm, how do you suggest we make sure he’s really turned over a new leaf?” 

“Genji. Hanzo has nothing left. With his father gone and his clan in pieces, as long as Genji is here, Hanzo’s got nowhere else to go.” He pauses and knows he’s going to regret what he says next. “And I will take personal responsibility for him.”

For a second, he spares a glance at the Shimada brothers to find them hugging. Hanzo has his arms wrapped around Genji. 

A heartwarming sight if his arms weren’t supposed to be chained together from wrist to elbow. 

He overestimated how long it would take to regret this. 

Gabe smiles in a manner reminiscent of a shark, “I like it. Plus, it will be a good first assignment for my new Assistant Director.”

* * *

Olivia is bidding her time, picking at her nails. 

Jesse is trying painfully hard to ignore her and continues to type out an email to Angela.

This is the fifth email he has sent. He’s not above begging if it gets Moira’s medical files out of his new office. 

He thinks for a second before adding in that he’ll assign trainees to help if she will just sign for possession by the end of the day. 

His eyes slip over the girl for a second before hitting send. 

Jesse pushes himself away from the desk and settles back fully in his chair. “I’m not signing those papers.”

Olivia slams her feet down from where they had been draped over the arm of the chair, “Are you kidding me?!” 

“You have been told-“

She cuts in, “Just think about how useful I would be, hermano. I could get in anywhere. I could break into anything and just,” Olivia throws her hands out before clapping them together as she says, “ _zap_ straight out! The tech-“

Jesse holds himself back from rubbing his face. A habit he’s trying not to pick up from Jack and Gabe. “The technology will be better in two years. Which is when you can get the enhancements.” 

“So unfair!” She crosses her arms, “You guys will let me hack into terrorist organizations, but I can’t get a personal upgrade.” 

“Not on Overwatch’s dime.” He continues before she cuts in, “It’s illegal on your own dime too. Remember that you like this job.” 

 

“Sometimes, I wonder,” she mutters under her breath. 

Jesse just raises an eyebrow before she hypes back up to full volume. “I can’t get my enhancements until I’m eighteen, but you can go on missions when you were seventeen.”

“I was eighteen.”

“Can’t fool me, J _oe_ l.” 

And he just found the end of his fucking patience.

He stands from his chair ready to tell her to get the fuck out, when Angela appears in the door frame. 

“Jesse, I was going to come get the files.” 

“Really, sometime this week?” He asks, a bit of sarcasm cutting his tone. 

Angela rolls her eyes, “Probably.”

She steps into the room and says, “And who might you be? I don’t believe that we’ve met before.” 

“I’ve already been here a year. Maybe you should pay better attention.” Sombra says, while she sits cross armed and sullen. 

Pouting like a child, Jesse notes. 

“She’s a tech. You were on leave when she came for her general checkup.” 

He walks over, handing his datapad over so the doctor can sign the release form. 

“Ah, well, it is nice to meet you. I’m Doctor Angela Ziegler,” She says taking the tablet from Jesse. 

Sombra doesn’t reply. 

Angela just looks at Jesse for a second and when he just shakes his head, she signs the pad and moves on. 

As she places the datapad on his desk, she takes a look around the office space, “This is nice, Jesse.” 

“Thanks, it makes me feel important.” He replies as he sends a text out to Amelie to send three trainees over for some manual labor. 

He likes his window the best. The view of the west side of the compound is especially nice at sunset. 

“Yeah, yeah, Cowboy gets a promotion and I can’t even get my tech approved,” Olivia cuts in, needing to remind everyone she was still in the room. 

Jesse struggles not to roll his eyes. “You are not having unnecessary surgery as a minor. As soon as your eighteen, I’ll approve it, okay?” 

Sombra narrows her eyes, “That a promise, hermano?”

“Yes,” He breathes out. 

He’d promise anything at this point. Especially something he was going to do anyways. She’s been in his office harassing him for the last hour. 

“What’s this about?” Angela asks. 

Seeing the chance to make Sombra’s desires Mercy’s problems, he quickly says, “Olivia, why don’t you tell Dr. Ziegler about the enhancements you want done in a few years?” Sombra just raises an eyebrow. “Since, she would be the one performing the surgery.” 

The sixteen-year old’s personality does a one-eighty as she whirls out of her seat to get in front of the doctor, “Hi, I’m Olivia Colomar. Call sign Sombra.”

The cowboy can hear the sound of feet franticly hitting the floor. 

“You don’t have a call sign, Olivia,” Jesse says as he walks towards the door. 

“Shut up, Joel!” She hisses before smiling at the doctor and showing her the specs she had been waving around at Jesse for the past six months. “This is what I’m looking to do. I think I would be a kickass agent with it.” 

Angela starts to swipe through, “Hmm, this is very interesting.”

Jesse feels relieved to find two of his problems being dealt with at once as he ushers some panting recruits into the office and points to the piles of boxes. 

He texts Amelie, _Here._

And he receives back, _Too slow then. Tell them to head back to the gym after for more laps._

Once he clears his office out of Olivia, Angela, and the recruits who looked like they might revolt after being told to head back to Amelie by a guy who looks younger than them, he just turns his chair around and watches people in blue uniforms scurrying around the courtyard in the afternoon light. 

“You know you should probably close this,” A voice calls. 

He turns around to find Fareeha leaning against the door. 

“Jack told me to keep it open. Promotes communication or some shit.” 

“But you don’t see Uncle Jack with his door open, do you?” 

“Nah, guess you can close it.”

She shakes her head, “Fuck that, we gotta go.” 

“I thought we weren’t leave till five?”

A big grin spreads across her face, the kind that got them both into too much trouble in the past, “Mom left base. It’s our last ice cream run before I leave for Cairo. Let’s go to Jeni’s.”

Jeni’s was an hour away on a good day. 

Well, it was a good day. 

Toasty warm air, not a cloud in the sky. 

It was a perfect day for a nice, long goodbye ride. 

Still, he had to give her a little bit of shit. 

“You’re just taking advantage that I’m letting you drive my bike.” 

“And?” She refuses to deny the fact. “Come on, Jesse, they have the best ice cream.” 

He clicks his tongue, “You know, I’m a sucker for the butter cake. Let me just shut everything down.” 

They purposely avoid any hallways that anyone important could walk down. Jesse had only had his new position a day, but people had known for years if you wanted something to get to Gerard or Gabe you told Jesse. 

Now, Jesse had an office, which made him easy to find and easy to waste his time with stupid shit.

The cowboy chucks his formal blues on his bed, throws on his leather jacket, grabs his keys, and fixes his hat on his head. 

He wonders if he should be worried about the fact he’s skipping out early on his first day of office work. 

He figures Gabe’ll just fire him and his life will get a whole lot simpler, worst case scenario. 

That actually seems like best case scenario after he found out today that he’s been doing most of Gerard and Gabe’s paperwork since he was promoted to supervisory agent two years ago.

Jackasses. 

Fareeha snatches the keys out of his hand once they hit the garage and gives him a big smile. 

God, he’s going to miss her.

* * *

“You both are late,” Ana says. 

“We just went to go get the ice cream, Mama. Nothing to be mad about.” Fareeha answers as she shrugs off her jackets. 

Jesse gives Ana a kiss on the cheek, “Sorry, Ana, I wanted to get the good stuff since Fara is leaving tomorrow.” 

Fareeha shoots him an annoyed look, but he’d rather that than a full fight right before she leaves. 

They move further into the house to find the usual crew sprawled out around the living room. 

Jack and Gabe were spread out as much as possible on one couch so no one would think they would add themselves on to the piece of furniture. They would move over for Ana once she made some noise about them being bad house guests. 

Angela was working on her datapad on the loveseat. 

Gerard and Amelie were talking with Reinhardt and Torbjörn at the dining room table behind the rest. 

Genji, with a seemingly dragged along Hanzo, had taken up residence on the couch he, Fareeha, and Jesse usually split. 

He isn’t surprised to see Hanzo there. Ana took a shine to Genji very quickly, so all the troll had to do was ask nicely and Ana was probably happy to let Hanzo come. Unknown to Genji, Ana actually just liked to keep a close eye on anyone she thought might be sneakier than her. It’s why she was such close friends with Amelie. 

It feels like longer than a day since Jesse had last seen the elder Shimada in the interrogation room. That might be relating to how little sleep he had gotten with the amount of work the Shimada incident caused and the time zone differences Jesse had to juggle. 

He had only remembered around five am to ask if Hanzo had burned down the port. Only for his agent to ask what port he was talking about. 

It had been so thoroughly wrecked that by the time the agents had gotten there they couldn’t tell that there had ever been a port to begin with. 

Gabe had just watched him like he was a lunatic after he couldn’t stop laughing for fifteen minutes. 

He knew he wasn’t going to have any problems with Hanzo betraying them for the Shimada-gumi after that at least. 

Fareeha walks off to go get spoons and Ana starts pushing at Gabe’s shoulder to move him closer to Jack, which Gabe allows and falls elbow first in Jack’s stomach. 

“Ice cream,” Genij whines once Jesse is behind their couch. 

“I didn’t raise you right,” Jesse says as Genji tips his head back so he’s staring straight up into the cowboy’s eyes and pouts. 

Jesse balances a blue and yellow pint of ice cream on his forehead. He watches for a second as Genji flicks his head forwards and the pint flips up and then straight into his hands. 

He just smiles, drops a pint of goat cheese with red cherries into Hanzo’s hand and moves on. 

“I don’t-” He hears Hanzo say.

“Just try it, Hanzo. Jesse know things.” 

“How would he-“

“I told you, brother, Jesse is a time traveler and he uses his knowledge to pick out everyone’s favorite ice cream flavor.” 

He puts four pints down on the table and Gerard pipes in, “That makes a lot more sense, Jesse! I always wondered how you guessed my favorite flavor every time.” 

“It’s just a talent, Gerard. You think if I was a time traveler, I’d be bringing you assholes ice cream.” 

Of course, he would.

He couldn’t think of anything else that would be better. 

Except maybe if Hana and Lucio were here instead of being small children. 

Jack says, “Yeah, I’m sure if he had that kind of knowledge he wouldn’t have been doing your paperwork for you the last two years, Gerard.” 

Jesse just chucks Jack’s pint at his head. “How long till this joke gets old?” 

“Going to be a few more days, Mijo. Now, toss me mine.” 

“I hate all of you,” He says, but tosses over Gabe’s ice cream in a nice underhand and then Ana’s. 

Fareeha trades Jesse a spoon for her and Angela’s ice cream, so he sits himself down next to Genji. 

He feels his friend push at his shoulder as he is peeling the cap off his pint. “Jesse,” Genji whines. 

“Hmmm?”

“Jesse, where’s my spoon?”

“Green Ranger,” He stares into his friend’s eyes, “that sounds like a personal problem.”

* * *

“So,” Hanzo starts calmly as Jesse holds a gun to his head, “You are a time traveler.” 

“Holy fuck, Shimada. You can’t sneak up on a person like that.” Jesse pulls his gun away and walks towards the boxes of ammunition on the side of the room. 

“Is that why you trust me so easily?”  
“Look, Genji was having a laugh. Don’t take shit like that literally.” He keeps his back turned from Hanzo and reloads his supply of bullets so he can do another run. 

He hears Hanzo hum behind him, “You are a bad liar, Jesse McCree. How does that work in an intelligence agency?” 

“I am not a bad liar!” He says, twisting to look straight at Hanzo even though his fingers are still deep in bullets. 

“Genji told me everything before we went to that commander’s house. The ice cream just proved it.” 

Fucking hell, Genji. 

Jesse just stares into Hanzo’s eyes, knowing he’s been caught. “So, what of it?” 

“I want my Storm Bow.” He nods over to where the weapon is locked in the weapons closet. 

“This is not information you can bribe me with, Shimada.” 

Hanzo gives a small smile, “A nice idea, but no. I wish to do a training simulation. Supposedly, I need my supervisor to give me permission.” 

“Uh, I guess so as long as I’m here.” He puts down the case he was working through and walks across the room. 

Jesse holds his hand out over the closet’s lock and grabs the box out and the quiver of sonic arrows when it pops open.

He holds the pair of items out for Hanzo. 

The ninja layers his hand over Jesse’s when he goes to grab the bow and says as he holds them together, “Good, run a two-person simulation. I wish to see if you are truly worthy of my future self.” 

Genji had apparently actually told him everything. 

Jesse feels his cheeks burning with embarrassment, but he asks, “And what about your present self, darling?” 

Hanzo’s eyes trail up and down Jesse, “Well, that remains to be seen.”

* * *

Gabe is going over the Oxton file across the desk from Jack. 

He catches himself spending more time just staring at the other man than doing his own work. He likes to take in these moments. The little time they have to just be in each other’s presence. 

It feels like they are still relearning how live in these times. 

These flashes of calm where they had to just be together with no calamity seconds from imploding. 

He thinks about everything that Gabe and he made and he can’t stop himself from hoping that soon it be stable enough for them to walk away from it all. 

Not now, but a few more years.

Enough time for Jesse to take over as Director of External Affairs, so that the Lacroix’s could step into Gabe’s role. 

It would be better split between the two. Gerard for mission oversight and politics and Amelie for training and intelligence management. 

Just enough time for Jack to hold out for Fareeha to grow into the leader she was meant to be in the Egyptian army and return the conquering legacy.

Maybe enough time for Jack to pack himself and Gabe up before Ana realizes that Fareeha and him having been planning this since Ana got her Overwatch application dismissed. 

He knows Gabe’s worried that their future is nonexistent when he catches the man glaring at his silvering hair as he runs it through his fingers, but Jack is feeling hopeful for the future. 

And seeing the kids that the three of them have trained growing and moving up, it has made him realize how he’s not scared of letting go. 

He’ll be ready to give Overwatch to them. 

In a few more years. 

Okay, probably like seven. Fareeha only just turned eighteen after all. 

And maybe Angela will figure out what’s wrong with them or maybe she won’t, but Jack can’t keep living for some fantasy retirement that the two of them whisper to each other in the dark. 

He has to enjoy his life as it is. If that means giving Ana more paperwork and meetings and less missions so he could leave his office at a normal hour and finding time to sit with Gabe every day even if they are both just working in silence, than he thinks living in the present was pretty damn good. 

He hears Gabe start to murmur to himself and watches the man switch documents back and forth on his datapad before he abruptly stands up. 

“Gabe?” Jack asks. 

“I-“ Gabe stops himself and Jack watches as he sees Gabe sorting through information behind his eyes. 

A gleam runs through Gabe’s eyes as a sudden flicker of realization catches.

Jack just waits. 

Gabe reaches over the com on Jack’s desk and clicks in a number that he recognizes as McCree’s new office com. 

“McCree, get your ass over to Jack’s office right now,” the man says gruffly before slamming the phone down. 

“Gabe, what’s going on?” 

“Winston’s report says there was some readings a little over five years ago that match Oxton’s phasing. The date they have recorded matches a date that always bothered me a little.” 

“What do you mean by that?”

“That day five years ago, Jesse took off for Japan and when I tracked him down, he had the best informant Overwatch ever got in Genji Shimada.” 

He just blinks and tries to sort through everything Gabe just told him. “There’s a lot of information to process here other than the fact that you didn’t tell me your flight risk just up and left.” 

He shrugs, “I thought he ran to give me a few days to cool off.” 

Jack lets out a deep breath, “Okay, but what I’m getting from this is-“

“You heard what Shimada said a couple nights ago.”

“It was a joke!” 

“Was it?” 

“Fucking hell,” He mutters and leans back into his chair. 

“Language, boy scout.”

“Oh, fuck you, you can’t really think…”

“With Oxton, it’s not like it’s totally out of the range of possibilities.” 

“Yeah, but-“ 

The door bursts open and a panting McCree comes in, “Jefe-“ 

He stops as he notices both men are looking at him cross armed and stone faced. 

“Umm,” Jesse starts. 

“Time-travel, really, Mijo?” 

“Fuck,” Jesse moans.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me at iwillwaitandsee.tumblr.com


End file.
